BEIJING, Jan. 5 (AFP) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao used one of his last official conversations with US counterpart George W. Bush to voice confidence that bilateral ties would remain strong, the foreign ministry here said. Hu made the remark while talking to Bush by telephone late Sunday local time, a little more than a fortnight before president-elect Barack Obama moves into the White House. "In a new historical period, China and the United States will definitely ...

BEIJING, Dec. 31 (AP) -- China's president called for faster reconstruction during a visit to the devastated Sichuan province where many victims of May's massive earthquake are facing a cold winter. President Hu Jintao spent three days in Sichuan, state media said Tuesday, visiting victims, relief projects, and inspecting rebuilding work in the area surrounding Wenchuan, the epicenter of the 7.9 magnitude quake that left nearly 90,000 people dead or missing. The start of winter has brought ...

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by parents of 58 children crushed to death when their school collapsed during May's massive earthquake, the latest setback for the parents in their quest for an apology and compensation. The dismissal of the case and reports of threats made against the parents underscore the political sensitivity of allegations that corruption and substandard construction caused thousands of classrooms to collapse in the 7.9 magnitude quake. While ...

BEIJING (AFP) - - China plans to set up a special police division to tackle organised crime and gang-related violence as the global economic crisis deepens social unrest, state media reported Monday. "In the foreseeable future, gangs will remain active as the country undergoes dramatic social and economic changes," the China Daily quoted an unnamed public security ministry official as saying. "Gang-related crimes have become a threat to our social stability and the economy," the official said. ...

TIANJIN, China (USA Today) — Alonzo Bland is spending the holiday season at a Chinese fat farm. The Green Bay, Wis., native will miss his family, but otherwise he's not complaining. "It's a little drastic to come to China," admits Bland, 33, a self-confessed couch potato and devourer of KFC food. "But drastic is what I needed, at 646 pounds." That was Bland's weight when his China adventure began in May, after winning a contest by China ...

Reporting from Beijing (LAT) -- The signs of discontent are small but unnerving in an authoritarian country where public demonstrations are not permitted. Laid-off toy company workers smash windows and computers and overturn police cars in Guangdong province. Employees of a liquor company in Harbin travel to their company's Beijing headquarters to demand back wages. Taxi drivers, as many as 20,000 of them, scuffle with police in protests that have spread into seven provinces. Even the police ...

BEIJING (AFP) — Chinese authorities are probing charges that a city in the east of the country locked up citizens in mental hospitals to prevent them complaining about local injustices, state press said Tuesday. At least 18 people are believed to have been sent to such hospitals in Xintai city in Shandong province, with some being given debilitating drugs, according to an investigative report published Monday by the Beijing News. The report said the victims were punished ...

(AP) -- President Nicolas Sarkozy has praised China as "one of the greats of the world" and insisted that he "always thought there was only one China." That accommodating language comes amid an uproar by Beijing over Sarkozy's weekend meeting with the Dalai Lama. Sarkozy has justified the encounter in the Polish city of Gdansk by saying it was his duty to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader. Sarkozy said Monday during a speech about human rights that ...

BEIJING: China has executed a businessman convicted of bilking thousands of investors out of $416 million in a bogus ant-breeding scheme, state media reported Thursday. The official Xinhua News Agency said Wang Zhendong, who was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to death in February last year, was executed in north China's Liaoning province on Wednesday. The death penalty is used broadly in China. Though usually reserved for violent crimes, it is also applied for nonviolent offenses ...

Rebecca MacKinnon reports on the limits placed on a famous Chinese blogger: 7 year-old blogger Zhou Shuguang goes by the nom-de-blog "Zola." The tagline of his blog says in English: "You never know what you can do till you try." He seems to be hitting up against the limits of what the Chinese authorities will let him do. Zola has stirred up controversy by turning himself into a commercial brand while at the same time committing citizen ...